Don't Toss Mesh Produce Bags — Use Them As Garden Support With A DIY Solution

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Certain fruit and vegetables — like onions, potatoes, avocados, and oranges, to name a few — are often packed in mesh bags, meaning you end up with a lot of them in your kitchen. Trust us when we say don't throw out mesh produce bags. The brilliant hacks to reuse them are plentiful, especially if you're a gardener. With just a little ingenuity, they make ideal melon cradles and fruit hammocks. Just think — you get a sling to cradle a melon as it grows on a trellis or fence without paying a single cent above the cost of three pounds of onions. This DIY needs nothing but some scissors, garden twine or wire, and the mesh bag itself. Install them on almost any trellis, from A-frames to cattle panel arches.

Heavy fruit, like cantaloupes or watermelons, need a little extra support when they're growing on a trellis. Without it, they may fall off the vine. The reason that mesh produce bags work so well for this purpose is their open weave. Air can flow through the sides of the bag without trapping rot-inducing moisture. A pack of 10 UCandy Melon Hammocks costs $16.99. Sure, they're reusable, but so are mesh produce bags. Why buy more new garden tools when you have a perfectly good solution in your pantry already? By reusing mesh produce bags, you save a little money and reduce your consumption. Plus, since the mesh bags are made of plastic, they will most likely last longer than the ready-made woven cotton options.

You've got to love a garden DIY that doesn't require you to buy any supplies. If you DIYed a strong garden trellis on a budget with items you already own for your fruiting vines, even better! You need one mesh bag per melon or any other type of heavy fruit you need to support. Depending on how many vines you have in the garden, it might be a while before you accumulate enough mesh bags on your own to do the job. Speed up the process by asking family, neighbors, and friends to save their bags for you, too. You'll have a pantry full of them in no time. You'll also need a pair of sharp scissors and some PerkHomy Strong Natural Jute Garden Twine or, for really heavy fruit, a roll of Oligei Green Garden Wire.

To turn a mesh produce bag into a melon sling, simply loop the bag over the fruit, similarly to how you'd put on a pair of pantyhose. Then, loop garden string or wire through the top of the bag and tie it to the trellis. Ideally, you don't want any tension on the fruit. Another option for making a fruit sling from a mesh produce bag is to cut a square — or a rectangle, it doesn't have to be mathematically perfect — from the mesh bag. Loop it underneath your growing fruit and draw the four corners together using twine or wire before, once again, tying it to the trellis. If you're cultivating really large fruit, like watermelons, you may want to open up the entire bag to create a large sheet of mesh. The bag will expand as the fruit grows; simply cut the bag off the trellis to harvest your bounty.

DIY slings made from mesh produce bags work for cantaloupes, honeydews, and gourds — basically any kind of vining, fruiting cucurbit that you can grow vertically on a trellis. They all need a little extra support for their heavy fruit. Dwarf varieties with smaller melons or plants with really sturdy stems are ideal for trellising, and they also benefit from the support hammocks. If you're growing vines that produce fruit weighing over 7 pounds each — think big pumpkins like Atlantic Giant and Big Max or large watermelons like Charleston Gray and Chris Cross — you're better off letting them sprawl along the ground rather than up a trellis. On the other end of the scale, you usually won't need to support small cucurbits, like squash and cucumbers.

Even though plastic mesh stretches, be prepared to add another mesh bag sling to the first or adjust the size of the sling as the fruit grows. Check the ties frequently, too, to make sure they're still securely attached to the trellis. These mesh produce bags hammocks — like all melon slings — work well on any kind of metal trellis, from DIY cattle panel arches to solid steel or aluminum climbing frames. They also work on twine and bamboo teepees, wall-mounted wooden diamond trellises, or Vingli PVC Garden Arbors. Basically, any support structure with bars you can tie string to is a good fit. Got more mesh produce bags than you have fruit that needs support? Use the decorative bags to protect home-grown vegetables from being eaten.